Effectively Wild Episode 2443: Season Preview Series: Blue Jays and Rays
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2026
⏱️ 149 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a video of Brandon Marsh’s hair-wetting, the Phillies’ latest therapy, the Red Sox “home whites” non-disparagement saga, a former team exec’s proposals to promote competitive balance, and the best candidates among MLB players to pit against each other in a “Who ya got?” debate, then preview the 2026 Toronto Blue Jays (55:43) with The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon, and the 2026 Tampa Bay Rays (1:42:53) with MLB.com’s Adam Berry.
Audio intro: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to Steele tweet
Link to Marsh video
Link to Jake on Marsh’s hair routine
Link to Baumann on Crawford
Link to hyperbaric oxygen therapy article 1
Link to hyperbaric oxygen therapy article 2
Link to Mayo Clinic on hyperbaric oxygen therapy
Link to research on efficacy
Link to Red Sox jersey change
Link to story on changing statements
Link to side-by-side statements
Link to @RedSox reply
Link to Ball on competitive balance
Link to Moneyball scene
Link to BP on competitive balance
Link to Ben on Machado vs. Arenado
Link to Ben on Correa vs. Seager
Link to Baumann on Conforto vs. Judge
Link to Machado vs. Arenado, rest of 2015
Link to Machado vs. Arenado, 2016 on
Link to Correa vs. Seager, 2018 on
Link to Conforto vs. Judge, start of 2017
Link to Conforto vs. Judge, rest of 2017
Link to Conforto vs. Judge, 2018 on
Link to team payrolls page
Link to Blue Jays offseason tracker
Link to Blue Jays depth chart
Link to 2025 team FRV
Link to team SP projections
Link to Rogers Centre renovations
Link to “Toronto” pronunciation
Link to Return of the Jedi scene
Link to bagged milk
Link to Happ on bagged milk
Link to Sloan’s website
Link to Mitch’s author archive
Link to Mitch’s podcast
Link to Rays offseason tracker
Link to Rays depth chart
Link to Dolinar data 1
Link to Dolinar data 2
Link to three-team-trades stat
Link to Statcast park factors
Link to team WAR projections
Link to Shane scene
Link to ballpark renderings
Link to trial delay
Link to Adam’s author archive
Link to spring training Opening Day
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How are you? I'm okay. We got so much to do delay. |
| 0:09.0 | Breaking balls and blaking snows, and those stats won't blast themselves. |
| 0:16.0 | Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild, |
| 0:24.3 | effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild. And welcome to episode 2443 of Effectively Wild a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:41.6 | I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of FanGraphs. |
| 0:45.5 | Hello, Meg. |
| 0:46.5 | Oh, hello. |
| 0:47.5 | Well, we are about to have a conversation at least as long as the conversation that Cub starter Justin Steele tweeted that he had had with Grock on Thursday. |
| 0:57.6 | But humans only on this podcast, despite what some might think. |
| 1:03.1 | We are, in fact, all human, 100% human. |
| 1:07.1 | But I wish Justin, well, with his new AI friend. |
| 1:10.9 | No, I look. Okay. I don't want to do too much of it. But someone needs to intervene on that right away. Someone needs to be like, no, no, Justin, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, no, no, no, no, no, no, got to learn something, nope, nope, nope, no. Well, he's putting it out there. So perhaps there will be an intervention. but we have much to talk about some baseball banter and then a pair of previews. |
| 1:31.5 | And it's an A.L. East affair today. |
| 1:34.1 | All A.L. East all the time. |
| 1:35.8 | We'll be talking about the Toronto Blue Jays with Mitch Bannon of The Athletic, followed by the Tampa Bay Rays with Adam Barry of MLB.com. |
| 1:46.0 | But first, the Phillies. |
| 1:48.2 | So I teased that I had a couple of Phillies topics to bender about yesterday. |
| 1:53.8 | And then we ran out of time, which is in fact possible even on effectively wild. |
| 1:58.5 | And so I tabled those topics for today. One of them I know you know |
| 2:02.6 | about because you independently sent it to me, but I have to send you this other one, which |
| 2:09.2 | don't be afraid. It's not bad by Philly standards. It's actually quite charming. But it's |
| 2:16.2 | something that I never expected to see and sort of regret seeing, but it is a video that was posted on Blue Sky the other day. |
... |
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